Bronwen McShea

From Élisabeth Arrighi Leseur's witness through the trials of illness to the work of Julia Greeley for the poor, remarkable contributions by ordinary Catholic women are coming to light.  Continue Reading »

The renowned Cardinal Richelieu had more confidence in his unknown niece than any other person. Was that trust well-founded? Continue Reading »

As a historian who studies missionaries, I am sometimes asked by my fellow Catholics: How did the Church think about evangelization in the past compared to the present? Typically it is clear that they regard one age as wiser than the other. The more progressively inclined assume that . . . . Continue Reading »

A century ago, a little-known Belgian artist named Albert Servaes became famous when cardinals at the Holy Office in Rome censured him for depicting Jesus Christ in a way they considered unsuitable for Catholics. The story made the front page of American Art News in New York. In this . . . . Continue Reading »

The priest martyrs of Silesia, and the nuns who suffered with them, were victims of a broader pattern of terror practiced by agents of the radicalized left.  Continue Reading »

In Before Church and State, Andrew Willard Jones describes a time when Christendom’s lay rulers were leaders in building the City of God. They “wielded the secular, temporal sword . . . bestowed on the Christian people by Christ himself.” In the medieval era, before sharp categorical . . . . Continue Reading »

The pope’s historical formulations—about Luther and Jesuit missions—makes this historian wince. Continue Reading »

On Sunday, April 27, one of the large lecture halls at Harvard Divinity School was two-thirds filled primarily with graying, upper-middle-class liberal women of the baby-boom generation who had come to hear and applaud Dr. Ida Raming’s “courageous” story of resisting the all-male hierarchy of . . . . Continue Reading »